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Using Formulas to Perform Calculation
Formulas in Excel begin with an equal (=) sign. When the contents of a cell begin with equal
to sign, Excel understands that user has given a formula here. If you don’t enter the equal
sign, Excel will treat your entry as text and the calculation will fail.
To show how formulas work, we'll begin with a simple exercise by selecting blank cell A1.
Then type = 5 + 5, and press Enter key. As you press the Enter key, Excel performs the
calculation and produces the result as 10 in cell A1.
Enter some more formulas in other cells and see what results are shown by Excel. MORE ON EXCEL
1. =8 – 5 2. =8 * 5 3. =8/5 4. =8 ^ 5
The results will be 3, 40, 1.6 and 32768, respectively.
Some formulas based on BEDMAS rule can be entered as:
39
1. =(8 + 5) – (2 + 3) ^ 2 2. =(9/3) * (4 ^ 2) – 5
Excel follows BEDMAS rule for doing mathematical calculations, where
Fun
Fact! B stands for Brackets, E for Exponentiation, D for Division, M for
Multiplication, A for Addition and S for Subtraction.
You can also use cell addresses to perform calculation in the following way:
Notice that when the cell C1 is selected in the Formula bar
shows the formula you just typed. You can also calculate the
sum of adjacent cells by pressing the Alt+= keys together
after selecting the cells.
• What appears in the cell is the result.
• What appears in the formula bar is the value, which is a formula in this case.
The elements of a formula are:
• References: A cell or a range of cells that you want to use in your calculation.
• Operators: Symbols (+, -, *, /, ^, $, %, etc.) that specify the calculations to be performed.
• Constants: Numbers or text values that do not change.
Soft Hint
To calculate the sum of adjacent cells: press the Alt + = keys together after
selecting the cells.

